This is my first attempt at using a GUI layout in Java. I am trying to create a simple memory card game, where the user flips over two cards, and tries to get a match, and if there's no match they flip back over, if there's a match they stay flipped until you get all the matches. I might have made it hard on myself though in that I made the whole game dynamic to the constructor variables that define the number of columns and rows of cards. I thought this was better than hard-coding a certain value in, but now I'm having trouble putting the images in my img folder onto my cards.
I understand that variables of variables are not permitted in Java & this is really hard for me to adapt to as a ColdFusion developer. Can you help me think of ways to accomplish this this the proper way in Java?
Here is a simplified version of my code.
import javax.swing.JFrame;
public class MemoryApp
{
public static void main(String args[])
{
//Creates a new game with 3 columns and 4 rows
final CardGame myGame = new CardGame(3, 4);
javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable()
{
public void run()
{
createAndShowGUI(myGame.getCols(), myGame.getRows());
}
});
}
private static void createAndShowGUI(int c, int r) {
//Create and set up the window.
Window frame = new Window("GridLayoutDemo", c, r);
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
//Set up the content pane.
frame.addComponentsToPane(frame.getContentPane());
//Display the window.
frame.pack();
frame.setVisible(true);
}
}
Card game class:
public class CardGame
{
private int cols, rows;
public CardGame(int c, int r)
{
cols = c;
rows = r;
}
public int getCols(){
return cols;
}
public int getRows(){
return rows;
}
}
The window with the grid layout:
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Container;
import java.awt.GridLayout;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JSeparator;
public class Window extends JFrame
{
private int cols, rows;
GridLayout windowGrid = new GridLayout(1,1);
public Window(String t, int c, int r)
{
super(t);
cols = c;
rows = r;
windowGrid.setColumns(c);
windowGrid.setRows(r);
}
public void addComponentsToPane(final Container pane)
{
final JPanel compsToExperiment = new JPanel();
compsToExperiment.setLayout(windowGrid);
JPanel controls = new JPanel();
controls.setLayout(new GridLayout(cols,rows));
int countCard = (cols * rows) / 2;
/**
* Add buttons to experiment with Grid Layout.
* This is where I'd like to be able to loop through
* countCard and create the required number of buttons
* as well as put images on the buttons like so:
*
* ImageIcon image1 = new ImageIcon(getClass().getResource("card1.png"));
* through
* ImageIcon image1 = new ImageIcon(getClass().getResource("card" & cardCount & ".png"));
*
* Below is how I would attempt this in ColdFusion- I know
* the variable of variables syntax is invalid, it is just
* to show you what I mean.
*/
// for(int i = 0; i < countCard; i++;)
// {
// compsToExperiment.add(new JButton("../img/card" & i & ".png"));
// ImageIcon variables["image" & i] = new ImageIcon(getClass().getResource("card" & i & ".png"));
// imageButton.setIcon(variables["image" & i]);
// etc. with ButtonClickEventHandler, haven't gotten that far yet
// }
pane.add(compsToExperiment, BorderLayout.NORTH);
pane.add(new JSeparator(), BorderLayout.CENTER);
}
}
Based on the code commented-out code that you posted so far, one approach could be like this:
public class Window extends JFrame
{
...
// A java.util.List that stores all the buttons, so
// that their icons may be changed later
private List<JButton> buttons = new ArrayList<JButton>();
// A java.util.List that stores all the ImageIcons that
// may be placed on the buttons
private List<ImageIcon> imageIcons = new ArrayList<ImageIcon>();
public void addComponentsToPane(final Container pane)
{
...
for(int i = 0; i < countCard; i++;)
{
// String concatenation is done with "+" in Java, not with "&"
String fileName = "card" + i + ".png";
// Create the icon and the button containing the icon
ImageIcon imageIcon = new ImageIcon(getClass().getResource(fileName));
JButton button = new JButton(imageIcon);
// Add the button to the main panel
compsToExperiment.add(button);
// Store the button and the icon in the lists
// for later retrieval
imageIcons.add(imageIcon);
buttons.add(button);
// Attach an ActionListener to the button that will
// be informed when the button was clicked.
button.addActionListener(createActionListener(i));
}
}
private ActionListener createActionListener(final int cardIndex)
{
return new ActionListener()
{
@Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
{
clickedCardButton(cardIndex);
}
};
}
private void clickedCardButton(int cardIndex)
{
System.out.println("Pressed button for card "+cardIndex);
// Here you can change the icons of the buttons or so...
JButton button = buttons.get(cardIndex);
ImageIcon imageIcon = imageIcons.get(cardIndex);
....
}
You mentioned that this is your first attempt to build a GUI with Java. So I assume that this is only intended for "practicing". If your intention was to build a "real application", you should rather consider some Model-View-Controller (MVC) approach for this.